Cockatiels are very ambitious birds.  They don’t spend a lot of time on lazy activities like sleeping.  Even preening looks like hard work to me because it takes them hours everyday to look beautiful.  But in addition to preening, the cockatiels have projects.  For awhile it was sitting on the outside corner of the cages and chewing all the paper that hung over the edge.

But that activity has been abandoned lately in favor of hiding on the other side of the cages where prying human eyes cannot see.  I was only able to get a blurry picture because it’s so dark back there, but don’t they look suspicious?

When we come upstairs and they’re hiding in their corner, they quickly scrabble up the cage.  There isn’t even enough room for them to comfortably stand on the little shelf, but they love having a private place to stand.  I wonder what they talk about.

Conner may not sing as much anymore, but he’s still willing to snuggle.

The camera makes him a little shy, but Jon was able to catch him in his closed-eye pose.

I try to supply a wide variety of toys for Trevor and Conner.  Conner doesn’t like them as much as he used to, but sometimes he chews the popsicle sticks.  Trevor prefers more variety.

This toy is awesome because it has a box wrapped in tissue with shreddable material inside.  Unfortunately, Trevor doesn’t like to forage.  But if your bird does, I recommend it.  Trevor just likes to pull the confetti string.

If you’re looking for toys for your cockatiels, first make sure that you’re getting a small size.  Cockatiels are not going to be able to break down things like wood blocks.  Instead, they can break popsicle sticks and things of a similar size.  My guys like also like paper and really thin woven strips.  Here is a rare glance of Conner playing with a toy.

I recommend using toys that you know they’ll enjoy and keeping a tester toy around.  Sometimes the cockatiels will ignore a toy for months and will then destroy it in a day.  You should also make sure that the toys don’t cause over crowding.  You don’t want to prevent the birds from moving around in their cages.  I prevent this by putting most of the toys on top of the cage.  I also have four cockatiel cages connected, though, which is a luxury for a lot of people.  I’m lucky that the cages fit nicely along the sloping wall so it isn’t even taking up space because a human couldn’t stand upright in that area.  As a result, the cockatiels have a pretty sweet setup.